Syntax error

zecamigo · Member Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Location: Portugal

Hi there!

ffmpegX is working fine to convert video files. I'm using it on Mac OSX 10.4
But... I'm trying to add a srt subtitle to an AVI movie, and when I try the preview I get a syntax error on line 1:

> sh: -c: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token ´('

I checked with VLC and Jubler and the .srt seems fine...

Troubleshooting anyone?

Thanks!

tomlee59 · Posted: Mar 11, 2009 13:50

That can be a symptom of a filename/pathname with odd characters, but it's hard to say for sure what's causing this in your case. But that's the sort of thing I'd look for.

zecamigo · Member Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Location: Portugal

Ok here it goes. This is the error I get when trying to encode.

/bin/sh: -c: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `('
/bin/sh: -c: line 3: `<textsub filename="/Volumes/ZECAMIGO/Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Yume - 1990)/Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Yume - 1990) CD 1.srt" characterset="ISO-8859-1" fontsize="24.0" font="Arial.ttf" horizontal-alignment="center" vertical-alignment="bottom" left-margin="60" right-margin="60" top-margin="20" bottom-margin="30" subtitle-fps="23.976" movie-fps="23.976" movie-width="720" movie-height="480"'

It's a slightly different error when I'm just asking for a preview.

Two questions:

1. Could it be because it is on a USB disk MS-DOS formatted?
2. Should I try to convert de AVI file first and only after add the subtitles?

Thank you very much?

zecamigo · Member Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Location: Portugal

Ok. Solved.

I simplified the name of the files and folders involved (no spaces, braces or apostrophes) and it worked.

Thanks.

tomlee59 · Posted: Mar 12, 2009 12:16

Glad to hear that you solved it. Although the Mac OS itself doesn't have a problem with these filenames, ffmpegx is built on unix software modules, most of which are intolerant of such characters. That's a not-infrequent source of frustration. Congratulations on figuring it out!